Cleveland's Surgical Theater in CNN spotlight

Surgical Theater LLC of Cleveland was featured this week in a nearly 3½-minute segment of “Erin Burnett OutFront” on CNN.
Dr. Warren Selman, neurosurgeon-in-chief at University Hospitals and medical director of Surgical Theater, explains how the company's software enables doctors to practice on 3-D images of their patients' brains while supervised remotely by other surgeons. For instance, images of brain aneurisms can be rotated to enable surgeons to determine the best course of action.
The CNN piece notes that Surgical Theater's launch stems from a chance encounter Dr. Selman had in a coffee shop with company co-founders Moty Avisar and Alon Geri, two former Israeli Air Force officers. The story likens Surgical Theater's technology to flight simulators that help pilots practice critical missions.
Dr. Daniel Barrow, a neurosurgeon at Emory University in Atlanta, is impressed by the Surgical Theater technology. “Every time I've seen it, it gets better and better,” he says.

Ralph Whitworth's Relational Investors LLC increased its holding in Canton-based Timken Co. in the first quarter as he pressured the company to sell its steel unit, according to this story from Bloomberg.
The news service reports that Relational bought 1.12 million shares in the three months ended March 31, increasing its stake to 6.62 million shares valued at $374 million, according to a May 15 filing today with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Relational owns 6.9% of Timken's shares outstanding and is the company's largest single shareholder, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Bloomberg notes that Mr. Whitworth won support in a non-binding vote of Timken shareholders on May 7 urging management to spin off the company's steel unit from its larger ball-bearing business. Timken directors are studying the results and will announce steps soon.

The New York Timesreports that Cambodian officials are asking art museums — including the Cleveland Museum of Art — to examine any Khmer antiquities they acquired after 1970, when a 20-year period of civil war and genocide gave thieves free range to loot the country's ancient temples.
“We are calling on all American museums and collectors, that if they have these statues unlawfully or illegally they should return them to Cambodia,” said Ek Tha, spokesman for the Council of Ministers, the nation's governing body.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York recently returned two statues from a 1,000-year-old temple, called Prasat Chen, that featured narrative groupings of sculptures illustrating tales from Hindu epics.
“Cambodia says the Denver Art Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Calif., each have one statue connected to Prasat Chen,” according to The Times. “Two other statues, a pair of kneeling attendants that had flanked a doorway in the Met's Southeast Asian galleries for two decades, are to be returned next month.”

New-business filings continue to improve in Ohio.
Secretary of State Jon Husted's office announced that 8,539 new entities filed to do business in Ohio in April 2013, up nearly 10% from 7,765 such filings in April 2012.
For the first four months of 2013, there have been 32,504 new business filings, an increase of 3% from 31,565 in the like period last year.

Roxanne Lasker-Hall, a 17-year-old student at Cleveland School of the Arts, is having a big moment.
In this Bloomberg video, she talks about the New York premiere last month of a short film she wrote, called “Speechless.”
Her script was chosen for production by Scenarios USA, a nonprofit that hosts writing and filmmaking programs for high school students. Bloomberg notes that the film, directed by Karyn Kusama, tells the story of a teenage boy who finds the courage to speak about being sexually assaulted and end the cycle of abuse.
Ms. Lasker-Hall is incredibly poised in talking about why she wrote the script and her role in the production.
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